Have you Bibles? Let's go back to Ephesians,
and Ephesians chapter 4.
We've already worked our way through part of
chapter 4. The text and context we're working
through now is verses 17 through 24. So I
invite you to turn there. We're going to read
that whole text verses 17 through 24. Apostle
Paul writes, "So this I say, and affirm
together
with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as
the Gentiles also walk in the futility
of their mind, being darkened in their
understanding, excluded from the life of God
because of the
ignorance that is in them, because of the
hardness of their heart, and they, having
become callous,
have given themselves over to sensuality for
the practice of every kind of impurity with
readiness. But you did not learn Christ in
this way. If indeed you have heard Him and
have been taught in Him, just as the truth is
in Jesus, that in reference to your former
manner of life, you lay aside the old self,
which is being corrupted in accordance with
the lust of deceit, and that you be renewed in
the spirit of your mind, and put on the
new self, which in the likeness of God has
been created in righteousness and holiness
of the truth." Now, let's think back, if you
can, to what we learned and looked at last
time in this text. We talked about how when
you come to saving faith in Christ, you get,
remember, one new nature. Christians don't
have two natures. We don't have an old nature
and a new nature. We have one new nature, and
remember the illustration we used from
MacArthur that is encased in this smelly old
coat called the flesh, in which dwells no
good thing. And so the new nature fights the
inner redeemed spirit against the old smelly
coat. That's what happens. And what happens in
this text, 17 to 24, is that Paul makes
a contrast, and he starts out by describing
the old way of life, and then he's going to
contrast that with the new way of life, and
that is part of where we started all the way
back in chapter 4, verse 1, where he is impl
oring us, remember, to walk worthy of the
manner
in which we were called. So we're still doing
that. Verses 17 to 19 describe the old walk,
the old man, and then 20 to 24, the new walk
and the new man. It's really, it's an
important
text for us to understand about the process of
our sanctification, sanctification being
what we're going through in the time period
from regeneration to actual physical death.
And so last time we looked at these
characteristics, four of them, of the old man
in verses 17
through 19. And let's just try to, we want to
refresh ourselves a little bit of that
so that we can make this contrast with Paul
today. So remember, at the end of verse 17,
Paul said that they walk in the futility of
their mind. That's really quite a phrase.
And what we learned out of that by way of
application is that those who are lost, those
who have not come to saving faith in Christ,
they live in self-centered emptiness. Remember
that? Anyone who does not have God's thoughts
going through their mind, God is defined by
Scripture, only have in their mind their own
thoughts to work with. And that results in
the big picture, really, in a vain, empty,
useless life. Now, understand the sense in
which I mean that. A person who has not come
to saving faith in Christ, they might have
a great career, they might be very busy, they
might have, make tons of money and be looked
upon by the world as really smart, hardworking
, got lots of stuff and all the rest. But
everything
that they have, if they haven't come to saving
faith in Christ, one day it's going to end.
Their money is not going to matter anything.
Their achievements on the day of judgment
for them, whether they die before Jesus
returns or when they stand before Him in
judgment at
the second coming, I don't care if you are a
president. If you haven't come to saving
faith in Christ, nothing that you did, nothing
that you engage yourself in will count for
anything on that day. And so that's how we can
say, while it may seem very rewarding
and fulfilling and all of that now, to people
in the world in the biggest picture, in the
spiritual picture, no matter what they did,
that's a vain, useless life when you're
standing
before Christ without His righteousness having
been imputed to do you while you lived in
this world. And then secondly, where you have
that happening in a person, look in verse
18. You will also, and remember there's a
progression here, being darkened in their
understanding, excluded from the life of God,
because of the ignorance that is in them,
because of the hardness of heart. So there's a
progression there. The godless person lives
in total ignorance of the truth. What do they
decide? Well, it's what you decided before
you came to Christ. Hey, I'll be the master of
my faith. I'll be the deterrent of my
own destiny. I'll make this life go how I want
it to go. I will determine that. But
what that betrays is an ignorance of the truth
. Folks that are going their own way, what did
Brother Moat used to say, pushing their own
buttons and pulling their own levers, right?
They don't have any answers at all to the most
important issues of life. They're cut
off, this verse says, from the life of God.
And when you're cut off from the life of God,
as we looked at last time, as time goes on,
the harder and harder your heart gets until
that consciousness totally seared, as
Scripture says, as with a hot iron. That's why
you see
so many people commit suicide. It's a fact
that most Americans don't like to think about.
But when you look at the statistics of death
by gun, at the top of the list is suicide.
It's not murder. And then next in verse 19,
this also includes the fact that they are
shameless. Look at verse 19. And they having
become callous. I love the phrase that the
King James has, past feeling. It means they
have no shame. They have no sense of regret
about anything that they do. They have no
morals. They have no standards. That's when
the conscious becomes so seared, it says next,
having given themselves over to sensuality
for the practice of every kind of impurity
with greediness. This is a total giving over
of themselves and to a lifestyle that we see
far too often paraded in our day. And some
examples you could think about of what happens
at pride parades and the things that they
do in the parade in front of children. And
then you can see it displayed in a drag queen
story hour. These are people who are totally
given over to reprobate minds. They can't
even think straight. I mean to think that a
man can be a woman. You're not thinking
straight.
You have a reprobate mind. And there are many
more examples. I'll just point those out as
the most obvious. And as I said last time,
what Paul was dealing with here in this city
of Ephesus, remember, I told you about the
temple of Diana and what was happening in
there with temple prostitution. I mean, it was
anything goes literally going on in that
temple. And think about these people that he's
writing to in this church. They've been rede
emed.
But many of them, Gentiles, especially, they
used to be in there. And then at the present
time, they had family members who were still
in there that they had to deal with and
friends
and co-workers, people totally given over to
reprobate minds. And you may say, well, okay,
that's those kind of people. But not everybody
's like that. I mean, not everybody takes their
lostness to the point that Paul is describing
here. But let me tell you what's also true
is the fact that that no person, nobody in
human society or the history of the world
has the natural resources to restrain
themselves from going that far. Nobody does.
It's only
by the common grace of God that falls upon the
just and the unjust in general society
and also the persevering influence of the
church and the Holy Spirit and dwelling
believers
that keeps anybody from not ending up in the
pit of a reprobate mind. That's how I mean,
can you imagine what the world would be like
if God after the fall had not ordained law and
order?
Well, we found out one time in just a matter
of hours in the New Orleans Superdome
during Katrina when the people inside the
Superdome that had fled there to escape the
flooding waters, when they realized that there
were no police in the whole Superdome. Do you
remember what happened? It was an absolute
nightmare inside the same building, the same
exact building
that we just had the Super Bowl in last week,
where there was a heavy presence of security
and there was not one incident of any type of
crime that happened that I know of,
that I made in the news, at least, inside
there with that security. But when there was
no security,
what happened? Within minutes, a horrific
nightmare, especially for women in that Superd
ome.
Imagine a world like that every day. All God
would have to do right now
is remove His restraining influence and common
grace, and we would be living in Mad Max
beyond
Thunderdome within days. If you know that
movie, it's a post-apocalyptic world with Mel
Gibson.
And while not everybody, of course not
everybody as bad as they can be, you know
people who are
very moral, who are not Christians, who may
belong to other faiths, or even atheists for
that matter,
but we've still got people everywhere who are
totally given over to wretched, reprobate
minds. And we see it all the time played out
in television and social media.
Look at 2nd Timothy 313. Paul gives us some
idea of how things are going to go in the
world,
but evil men and imposters will proceed from
bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
Isn't
it something to think about? Think about our
nation. In less than one generation, we have
gone
from network television not being able to show
Elvis Presley from the waist down, literally
now in less than one generation to having the
most horrific images your mind can conceive of
in the palm of your hand in 4K HD, and you can
pull them up anytime you want to, and
everybody's
got one of these. Think about that. One
generation of time. Now there's nothing new
under the sun
with human behavior. That's true, but that's
not true when it comes to technology.
Technology
increases, and right now technology is
continuing to increase at rates and levels we
've never known
before in human history. And as it does, and I
'm thinking about AI right now, we're just
seeing the
tip of the iceberg, what's coming with AI. It
's going to be, I think about back when I was
in
high school, I couldn't even conceive of the
internet. I couldn't even conceive of a device
in
my hand. I could ask any question I want and
get the answer immediately. That was something
that you
didn't even, it didn't even enter your mind. I
'm telling you right now, there is technology
coming
that we can't even predict. We can't even
imagine right now in less than one generation
from now
unless Jesus comes back first. And that's why
we say come quickly Lord Jesus, right? I mean,
what we're fixing to get into the things I've
learned so far about AI, it's going to blow,
blow all this out the water. And this is going
to be like the Stone Age very, very soon. So
Paul is giving us some of these extreme
examples of the old life, especially as I said
, these Gentiles
who lived in Ephesus. And again, that's why we
say, he says this in verse 17.
Look at it, that you walk, walk, remember,
banner of living, that you walk no longer as
the Gentiles
walk. So he's thinking about all those people
in the temple, in that culture, and he's
saying
to these Ephesian Christians, that is not your
life anymore. You are not to live like that
anymore.
And I'm telling you, this is one of those
things that's hard for me to convey. It will
never,
ever not be just absolutely sonnating to me,
how the miracle of regeneration
really changes your nature. I mean, I'm
fascinated. I think about it all the time. It
makes you think
and behave so differently. And it's not out of
any kind of obligation. That fascinates me in
itself.
It's out of a real, true desire. All of a
sudden, you really desire to live a life that
's pleasing
to God. And then when you don't, in those
moments that you don't and you fail and you
sin,
you get convicted. That's something that never
happened before this change. I'm telling you,
I'm still amazed by this. There is just no way
possible, no possible way that I could have
ever, ever just decided to start living like I
live now on my own. No way. I find it very
hard
to explain that to somebody unless they've
gone through it themselves. But folks, that is
what
genuine faith in Christ does to a person. It
changes a person tremendously.
Christy says, "It's like we live two different
lives." And it really is. And look, even if
you
were saved at a young age and you grew up in
church and you never went through all the
things,
say for example, that I did. Even if your
story is not anywhere like my story, guess
what? We both
ended up with a nature that was changed and a
desire to live our lives out in such a way
that
doesn't come natural to anybody, right? No
matter what your story is, we both end up
really, truly
wanting to live a life that brings glory not
to just any God, but the God of the Bible.
Nobody naturally wants to do that. All of a
sudden, you have this love for the brethren.
I mean, no matter how different you might be
from them on an earthly level, no matter how
different your background may be, if they have
the indwelling Holy Spirit and they love
Christ and
genuine, you love them. You have that in
common. You have that in common which you don
't have
at all with people who have not come to Christ
. And we all sit here and we're in here and we
believe
that this book is God's word and we really
want to live according to his precepts. And as
I said,
when we fail, we get convicted and we keep
short accounts with God and we keep going back
to him
and asking forgiveness where we failed. And
that's very important to us. That's not
natural.
And then think about it. We all love coming to
church on Sunday and singing hymns that are
centuries
old and listen to the preacher carry on for
sometimes an hour. And then sometimes we come
out of the church not feeling very good. We
come out convicted and then we say, that's
good.
It's good that I was convicted. Folks, none of
that is natural. I mean, we get used to it,
right?
But it's not natural. All of those things and
more give evidence of this tremendous change
that has occurred in us. And so Paul here in
our text has just taken us through these
extremes of the old life and the old way of
life in verses 17 to 19. We looked at that
last time.
Now he wants to contrast that with this new
walk and this new way of life. And the first
contrast
is between the old, self-centered and useless
and the new, Christ-centered and purposeful.
I mean, that alone is quite a contrast, right?
That alone is quite a change. Can you identify
with that? Your life used to be self-centered
and useless. And by faith in Christ, it's
become
Christ-centered and purposeful. That by far is
the best way to live. Christ-centered and
purposeful.
Look at verses 20 to 21. But you did not learn
Christ in this way if indeed you have
heard him and have been taught in him just as
the truth is in Jesus. Now, I didn't learn
Christ
to then just go on through life walking in the
vanity of my own mind. You didn't either.
When I learned Christ and heard him and was
taught by him, what was the purpose? It was in
order to follow him. Him, not my way of
thinking. And that starts in the mind.
Remember what Jesus
said in John 10, 27. He said, "My sheep hear
my voice and I know them and they follow me."
That's
the purpose. This is real. When we come to
saving faith in Christ, we do hear his voice
and we are
taught by him and we do learn from him, from
his word and his working in our life. And that
teaching
and that hearing and that learning, it starts
the moment that we're saved and it never stops
till we die. You never stop learning. This is
the old saying and it's so very true. The more
I know,
the more I know, I don't know. I find that to
be very true. And then when we go home,
our real home, to be his presence as we talked
about earlier, I think that's when
we really start learning him in a way we can't
conceive of. I personally think our brains are
not capable while we're here of learning him
in the way we will learn him in heaven. And
because of
all of this, folks, as Christians, our lives
are not useless. Our lives are not wasted.
Our lives are infinitely purposeful. Think
about that. My life counts to God. Your life
counts to God, not because I'm so great or you
're so great. We all deserve wrath. We all
deserve
hell, but because Christ died as my substitute
to save me, to save you, and to give us the
ultimate
purpose for living, bringing glory to God with
our lives. I mean, ever since I was first
saved,
all I ever wanted to do out of really true
gratitude, because God not only saved me from
wrath,
he saved me from that pathetic life that I was
living. When I was left on my own to live life
for myself, it was a disaster. My life was a
disaster, so he saved me from myself. And so,
almost immediately, all I ever wanted to do
was serve him as an expression of thanksgiving
.
And currently, I've been serving with the
opportunities given to me here now for almost
15 years. And if something happened and I had
to go somewhere else, I would just hope, Lord,
please send me an opportunity to serve him.
And I will serve until I die. One old preacher
said this, preach the gospel, die and be
forgotten. Next man up. That's the idea right
there,
selfless, right? Next man up. I'm nothing. He
's everything. Don't look at me. Just look at
him
using me to proclaim him. That's the idea. I
mean, how great is it to know why you're here
on
this earth? How great is that? You should get
up and thank God every day that you know why
you're
here, that you know what your purpose in life
is, and more than that, you know exactly what
's
happening when you die. That's it from the
body present with King Jesus. I mean, I can't
imagine
now being a middle-aged man stuck in Groundhog
Day. I just, I mean, no purpose. Just living,
just surviving, just going through life, no
thoughts of God, just working hard every day
and
hoping that there's going to be enough money
in retirement. I mean, how sad, right? And
then what
you're going to do when you retire? What you
're going to do? You watch TV? At some point, I
will
retire from secular work, but I will never
retire in serving the King. I mean, even if I
'm
bedridden, I'll start a prayer ministry there
in the bed. But listen, think about this.
To retire, and some of you here are retired
from secular work, to retire with Christ-
centered
purpose in your life is by far the greatest
retirement there is on earth. You have retired
from your secular work with a Christ-centered
purpose in your life, and then when you die,
you get the ultimate retirement. That's what
we talk about amongst my pastor friends, you
know.
The work is hard, but the retirement plan we
got is the best there is, right? We go to
heaven.
So, Christian, that first contrast is you have
a Christ-centered purpose,
not a self-centered emptiness with your life.
Second, instead of being ignorant of the truth
,
like they are in verse 18, church, you know
the truth. Look again at verse 21. This is
speaking
of Jesus. "If indeed you have heard him and
have been taught in him just as the truth is
in Jesus."
When you come to saving faith in Christ, it is
simultaneous with surrendering your life to
his Lordship. As one preacher said, we don't
make him Lord of our lives, as some say. No,
he already is Lord over everything, whether
you want him to be or not. The issue is, do
you surrender
your life to his total rule over your life,
his total Lordship over your life? It is my
position
that there is no way to even become a
Christian without surrendering to Christ as
Lord simultaneous
with having faith in him. And when you give
him your life, what you're saying is, you rule
.
You rule over it. You are most important. It's
not my plan, it's your plans. And when you do
that,
you fall under his truth, the truth. And
rather than being ignorant, you know the truth
. So many
people are on a quest for the truth. You hear
them talk about my truth and all that nonsense
.
John McArthur says, that's the most traveled
road in human history. The quest for the truth
.
But the problem is, the natural inclination of
man is to look everywhere possible for the
truth,
except the only place that you can find it.
They don't want to look under that rock.
And it leads many people in their quest for
the truth to where Pilate was. You remember
what he
said to Jesus? What did he ask Jesus? What is
truth? That's just complete, cynical, giving
up the
search because they can't scratch that itch
because they don't want to look at the only
place that
you can find it. Because there's only one
truth, Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life
. Look
at St. Corinthians 11-10. What a great thought
, how it starts out, as the truth of Christ is
in
me. Wow. That's for all Christians. What a
thought that is. Just think about that for
just a minute.
The truth of the Creator, Sustainer, King, and
Ruler of all things is in us. Nobody really
even understands the real, true, big picture
reality of everything going on in the world,
in the universe, and human existence, except
Christians. And that's not arrogant. That's
through grace alone that we know it, but that
's true. 1 John 5, verse 20. And we know that
the Son
of God has come, and look what He's given us.
He's given us understanding so that we may
know
Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true
in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God
and eternal life. You think John's wanting to
get something across to you there?
And if all actual truth is in Christ, look
what John says in the very next verse,
verse 21, "Little children, guard yourselves
from idol." Why does he say that? Well,
there's no useful information in any idol.
Branch that out. There's no useful information
in any other religion of the world that's ever
been invented or will be invented,
except biblical Christianity. None of it is
any good. None of it is useful.
Many people don't like to hear that, but that
itself is a part of the truth that salvation
and knowledge of the truth are found in Christ
alone. So back verse 21, "If indeed you have
heard
Him and taught in Him, just as the truth is in
Jesus." I want you to just think about all the
truth that you know, that you've learned since
becoming a Christian, the truth about God. You
know the truth about Christ, about the Trinity
. You know the truth about man. You know the
truth
about sin. You know the truth about creation.
You know the truth about life and death. You
know
the truth about true history. You know the
truth about eternity. You know the truth about
salvation.
You know the truth about joy and happiness.
And you understand the difference. You know
the truth
about purpose and meaning. You know the truth
about heaven and hell and angels and demons
and grace and faith. And only we know the
truth about all of that and more. That's not
even an
exhaustive list, right? And because we know
the truth and because the truth of Christ is
in us,
as the verse says, instead of being shameless
without behavior, instead of having no
morality
or any real purpose in our life, what happens?
We are people who are sensitive to sin.
And that's why Paul goes next into verse 22.
Look what he says.
"That in reference to your former manner of
life, you lay aside the old self which is
being
corrupted in accordance with the lust of dece
it." Now this is interesting. We can walk and
chew
gum at the same time here. There is one sense
in which that describes repentance from sin
and
submission to God in salvation. And keep going
, verse 23 and 24. "And that you be renewed in
the
spirit of your mind and put on the new self,
which in the likeness of God has been created
in
righteousness and holiness of the truth." So
in one sense, those verses are describing what
takes
place when you repent and believe and then you
lay aside the old self. And then there's a
renewal of
the mind, which brings about a transformation
from the old self to the new self, which verse
24,
"in the likeness of God has been created in
righteousness and holiness of the truth." That
's
in salvation, but it's interesting. There's
also another application that can be made here
.
"Once you become a Christian, immediately you
are in a battle with the world, the flesh, and
the
devil." Right? And as I said earlier, your new
self struggles with putting back on that st
inking
old coat of your flesh. And so in this sense,
Paul is saying, "Don't do that. Put it off.
Lay it aside.
Put back on the new self, which is in the
likeness of God has been created in
righteousness and
holiness of the truth." And that is not
something that you do one time, right? I mean,
yes, we make
distinctions here. There is a one-time
repentance unto salvation that you have when
you come to
faith in Christ, but then you enter into the
Christian life. And then repentance and
putting
off that stinking old coat of your flesh.
Guess what, folks? I hate to tell you, it's
something
that you have to do every single day. You
struggle with that coat every day of your life
. But that,
gloriously, is the process that you go through
as God is conforming you to the image of
Christ.
That battle with that old coat and laying it
aside is part of the process in God bringing
you to
greater and greater levels of spiritual
maturity. It's a glorious process. It's not
meant to be
easy. It's meant to be hard for our good. And
we are certainly not left to ourselves
with no resources to help us in this process.
Along with the Holy Spirit that indwells us,
we have two primary resources. Number one, the
Word of God. Remember 2 Timothy 3.16?
All Scripture is inspired for God and
profitable for teaching, for reproof, and look
at these
last two, for correction and training in
righteousness. Do you need correction and
training and righteousness as you're
struggling with putting off that old coat? Yes
, you do.
Well, expose yourself to the Word of God. It's
all the answers are in here.
That's why Paul told Timothy that. And then
the second resource is prayer.
You pray for wisdom. You pray for ever-incre
asing levels of sanctifying grace. Lord, I need
more
grace. I need more grace. And in your prayers,
daily repentance. Ask God every day in your
prayers
for the forgiveness of your sins, because you
're in time sinning. But then you get through
that,
as I tell you all the time, then you turn to
the ultimate resource. The ultimate resource
is Christ
Himself. And you see Him there. You see Him
there as you turn to Him as He's hanging on
the cross,
really and truly paying the penalty that you
owe for all of your sins,
past, present, and future. The one whose
perfect righteousness is put on your account
through
faith alone in Him. It's that daily preaching
the gospel to yourself, and you're recognized
all at the same time that while you're
struggling and fighting to put off that code
every day,
at the same time while you're doing that, you
also are knowing and understanding more and
more at
deeper and deeper levels that it's not your
performance in the Christian life that makes
you right with God or keeps you right with God
. And then with great joy as you turn to Christ
and
look to Him, more and more you realize it's
His performance. It's His performance on my
behalf.
It's that perfect fulfillment of the law, that
actual righteousness that He attained
while He was here on this earth. It's that
very righteousness when I surrender my life to
Him
that God puts on my account. That is the tot
ality, folks, of the balance that we keep in
this Christian
life that we're, yes, we're struggling with
putting off that old code, we're sinning,
we're failing, we're asking forgiveness, and
then at the same time you're turning to Christ
and
you can exhale. Grace makes you exhale. Grace,
God's grace, Christ's righteousness
is the righteousness that gets you into heaven
and it takes work. It takes time in God's Word
and prayer for you to be able to keep that
balance. If you're not using those resources,
you're not going to keep that balance. I can
promise you that. You're either not going to
care
and get some serious chastening in your life
or you're going to get real legalistic.
And then when our last day is done on this
earth,
folks, we are going to realize and understand
more than we could possibly understand right
now
after everything that we went through in our
life, all the heartaches and adversities of
our
sanctification, all the times we failed God,
everything that we went through when we leave
this world and we are absent from the body and
we are present with Christ. We are at that
moment
and then all eternity, we're going to resonate
Romans 8/18. Look at it.
"For I consider, Paul said, that the suffer
ings of this present time are not worthy to be
compared
with the glory that is to be revealed to us."
Hang on to that promise and let's pray. Father
,
we thank you for that promise and all the
promises of Scripture. We say yes and amen.
Oh, how much we need to learn down in our
bloodstreams, how much we don't deserve your
grace
and your mercy for doing all of this for us.
But this is your plan and this is your purpose
and
we rejoice today in all of the benefits of
what it means to put all that old self and put
on a new
self and a new nature. And Lord, if there's
anyone here who has not surrendered to the
Lordship of
King Jesus and saving faith, I pray that you
would use your words combined with the power
of your
spirit to draw them and save them and for all
of us who are adopted by grace and the family
we
say thank you Lord for another Sunday that we
got to come to your house and freely worship
you
and bring you glory. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
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